Strengthening Faith and Overcoming Adversity | Living Like Never Before (Part 2) |Stephen Feith

Now, continuing our series this is living like never before. And in this series, we're presented by the author, several practices, things that we can do things that you can do, I can do, we can do, not just individualistically, but as a community to improve our spiritual lives and not just for the sake of improving our spiritual lives. This isn't like some Seven Habits of Highly Effective Christians a series.

But as we seek God's Will out for our lives, for our families, for the workplaces, to the place that we call home for Madison, we want to improve our spiritual lives, we want to improve the conditions of our city, we want to be a bright light. And so this is the third part of a study at our church we've been doing for about a year and a half. Now we take breaks in between. So if you follow us on YouTube, you notice that we have other series that we have done since then absolutely, we take breaks after doing a long series like the one that we're in. But this is the third part. And we're going through the gist.

Now the back third of Hebrews previous talks, for the first two parts of the series are available online. And this is the second week of our present series. If you missed last week, again, that's online. But you don't need to have heard last week for today, to make sense today will still make sense for you guys. Last week, we discussed the importance of Christian community while following Jesus and living as a people under the new covenant.

And New Covenant is kind of fancy, religious Christian language for just saying there's a reason that when we come here today, we're not sacrificing bulls up here, right? That was an old covenant that we're no longer on under. So a new covenant looks like what we are living under. today. We're singing songs and worshiping and praying and talking about Jesus.

And so that's the new covenant.

And the author of Hebrews says, Hey, Christian community, the church, the big C church, is critical in this new covenant.

We talked about how some members of that original audience actually had stopped meeting with their church community, their church community, if you look around the room right now, their church community would have been the size, there were a house church they met in someone's house, and they don't have houses like you. And I have houses today, okay. That vastly smaller houses. And so we've had these small house churches. And what happened was that some people had stopped meeting they just stopped showing up. Now throughout this entire letter to the Hebrews, we know that there's good people in there whose faith is wavering.

Sometimes it was like, what do we believe and they're kind of wavering in their belief about Jesus, who is Jesus is can Jesus do this is are the angels higher than Jesus, you know, they're seeking clarity on that. But other times, they waver from their commitment to each other.

And then ultimately, the author saw that last week as a wavering in their commitment to Jesus. So let me just kind of break that down and a pattern, the author says, what begins to happen internally, a wavering of your faith, something's going on inside with your faith eventually comes out in the form of wavering and your commitment to the people around you. So it's not like, it starts with the people around you. It always starts internally, and then it comes out to the people around you. And then the author of Hebrews predicts that what happens then if you start to waver in your commitment to people, that's kind of evidence of your inner kind of dilemma with your faith. Eventually, your faith in Jesus is going to destabilize, eventually it's going to diminish. And so he's telling us that hey, don't stop meeting together, you we know that there's something going on internally, with your faith, you're going through a hard season, a dark season, a long season, you know what that's going to happen to every single one of us, it's going to happen in different ways. Certainly, depending on who you are, what you're going through. But don't stop meeting. Don't get disconnected. Don't choose loneliness, don't choose isolation, continue to put your pants on turn Netflix off, and be a part of Christian community. Because if you don't, this could eventually hurt your relationship with God, what we think is like, oh, I'll just stop meeting with these people and nothing and and I'll be fine. And the author of Hebrews are saying no, not really, when you waver in your commitment to other people, he sees that or she sees that they see that as a wavering in your commitment to Jesus. Now, I think that in our hyper individualistic society, we would push back on that, I think you might push back on that because we've turned Christianity into a DIY, do it yourself, religion. We want to practice Christianity on our own and to some degrees we can and we do throughout the week, nobody's with you. When you read your Bible on Monday morning, nobody's with you. On Friday night, when you're on your knees praying, I get that there are aspects of it. That is very individual. But any version of Christianity that doesn't include a meeting, a gathering of belonging with a Christian community is not Christianity.

It's not at all what's spoken about in the Bible. It's an American version, a hyper individualistic American version of Christianity. And the author of Hebrews is warning against that says there are consequences to that hyper individualistic faith that you are turning Christianity into. We need people We need other believers.

And maybe you're saying I'm going through a good time in life. I don't need anyone else.

Why would I need anyone else?

Well, because if you've lived long enough, you know that sometimes things are good. Maybe that's just the day. But some of you had good months. And some of you have had good years. And then others of you know that eventually, that changes, that changes, that changes for all of us, it doesn't matter who you are. And then you go through a bad day, maybe a bad couple of weeks, maybe a bad couple of years. Right. Since 2020, I think that a lot of us have been in a pretty similar shape, we wouldn't say we're necessarily thriving, if you if you were to come here and say since 2020.

Man, my life has been great. I understand that you are in the vast minority of people who are described their life since 2020.

And if you're saying life's been pretty hard since then, okay, you are in the majority. And that's not to, you know, say one thing or another, but it is to say, what it is to say is that we need each other. So when you're going through a hard time, if I'm not I need to be here for you. That's what Christianity is about. That's what following Jesus is about.

You ever say I'm having a bad time. So I need to, you know, I need to be a part with the community. And I'm like, Well, I'm not having a bad time. I don't need them, I'm out. But then I'm not carrying my responsibility. What Jesus says no, if you're having a good time, you need to be there to help someone. And so we need to do this to gather. And so the hyper individualistic thing, it's harmful to your spiritual well being we need each other when we're going through tough times. And that's a little bit more of what we're going to unpack today. Last week, he said you should do this, be around other people encourage you and motivate you to do good. And the author of Hebrews has done this since the beginning. But what if I don't, the author of Hebrews is going to answer that for us.

We're going to Hebrews 10.

starting with verse 26. Today, we're just going to cover what happens when our commitment to each other does waver. And so if you want to follow along, the words will be on the screen. But of course, you can use the house Bibles, you can use your Bible app, whatever. The author of Hebrews whom, again, we don't know the identity of, is going to use a mix of promises and warnings, which has been consistent throughout the entire letter they write Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning, after we have received the knowledge of truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. There's only the terrible expectation of God's judgment, and the raging fire that will consume his enemies. For anyone who refuse to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdain the Holy Spirit who brings God's mercy to us. For we know the one who said I will take revenge, I will pay them back also said the Lord will judge his own people. It is a terrible thing to fall in the hands of the living God. So let's break this passage down a little bit. What are the original hearers hearing when this is being read to them?

Well, one, the author goes back to Moses and goes back to the Old Testament, because the primary audience are Jewish Christians. That's why it's called Hebrews. So for them story of Moses is more well known than maybe some of the things that Jesus did. Remember, at this time, when the original author audience is getting this letter to the Hebrews, the rest of the New Testament hadn't been written. They had fragments they have maybe one was circulating around where they were at. But for the most part, it was word of mouth. Did you hear Jesus did that? Did you hear Jesus sat down, I heard and so on. So my brother also said that they saw him. Well, you know, he's back from the dead, they saw Him crucified. And then they saw him walking around a few days later.

And so it was all word of mouth.

In this kind of way. We the author of Hebrews has done this the whole letter, which is a site something in the Old Testament, because for Jewish Christian therapy accepted it.

There's no argument there's no hearsay. This was written in our Hebrew Scriptures, of course, this is this is solid, this is gold. We're not gonna argue. So when the author of Hebrews is saying, look, there's still going to be judgment. If if we say, we believe in Jesus, and then our faith wavers, and we quit community, and then we quit God, it's not like God is going to just ignore that. And this was important, because remember, to the original audience, they're trying to discern, is this a new religion? This Jesus thing, this Jesus movement? Is this a new religion? Or is this is this what we believe in? The author of Hebrews keeps saying, no, no, this is what the Old Testament was telling you that the Old Testament was always pointing toward Jesus always pointing toward something better. And so what they're saying is, look, this was the way that things were handled in the Old Testament, when somebody who two or three people witnesses when they broke the law, they'd be killed. Okay, it's not like that anymore.

That's the whole middle portion of Hebrews and saying why we don't do those things anymore.

So don't get confused this morning. But the saying she's saying that there's still this judgment of sorts and judgment in terms of justice and in terms of God being the one who gets the call the shots when everything is all said and done, and they're saying how awful is it to say that like you have this moment with Jesus and this is an authentic moment with Jesus, this isn't somebody who's just dabbled in it. And then whatever. This is somebody who's had that moment they encountered God, they got baptized or whatever and they're living and then all sudden the waiver he starts to commit. And the author of Hebrews is saying, get back on track what you do in this life absolutely matters now, we may think that the author saying you have to earn your salvation. Oh, so I got to do a bunch of good stuff. Otherwise, you know, I'm hell bound. Is that is that it? And no, not at all. In this passage, it is helpful to understand the Greek word they use, which is how Koufos which is to say that they willingly and deliberately continued to sin, that's a word of depending on your translation. And if we keep sinning, choosing to sin, it's willfully and deliberately present tense. Let me compare that to modern day, okay? We understand there's a difference between like a charge of murder, which would be like preemptive, you play on it, you carry it out, it's heinous to some degree, right? murder and manslaughter. Someone accidentally killed someone, we judge people differently based on that one, mostly on intent?

Did they plan to kill someone?

Did they mean to kill someone?

Was this their goal? Or was it an accident?

And this is what the author is saying, Look, accidents happen.

That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about the deliberateness of it. The I'm committing to the plan. So look, well, porn, if you look at porn, will you lose your salvation?

No, you won't lose your salvation. But it's the same if you just keep looking at porn, and you don't really care.

Eventually what the author of Hebrews is saying that's gonna take you down a path where it's not just watching porn anymore.

It's chat rooms, and it's paying for things. And then it's escorts. And it's strip clubs, and it's prostitution. And eventually, and it's not a slippery slope. But it's to say that this is a path, that if you begin to walk on in your unrepented, it's not just going to affect your faith, it's gonna affect your relationship with other people, daughters and sons that God cares about, that we're now using for sexual objects.

And that's gonna affect our relationship with God or takes us down a path again, will porn itself you look at it, or you go to the strip club, and you do that once? Said, You, hell, no, I don't know, God's grace is great. But it says, if we keep doing that, we're just unrepentant. And we're deliberate about that, like, we're gonna have to own that we're gonna have to be accountable, we're gonna have to be responsible, is that to say if you have an angry outburst on the BeltLine, that you're gonna have to get saved next Sunday?

No, I'm not saying that at all.

But as I say, if you live with anger, and you're not at all trying to control it, anger is eventually going to turn into bitterness and bitterness turns into hatred, and how are you going to do the things that God wants you to do, to love yourself to love your neighbors to love your enemies. If you can't control the bitterness, hatred and anger in your heart is being angry, wrong? No. But when it's uncontrolled, and we just let it go, and we have no discipline, to live under how God wants us to live, eventually, it's going to be an issue. And that's what the author of Hebrews is communicating. If we deliberately keep doing this, if we make plans if we're sneaking around to get away with this, we have an issue with God coming.

Now what is sin, I'm not going to dive too far into this. I've covered it a lot in the past, but we tend to think of sins is just do's and don'ts, don't murder, don't lie, do love other people. And sin is those things.

But it's not limited to that.

That's a very elementary view of sin. That's what I teach my son who's six years old, and my other son four years old, about sin, it's some of those things, but we also got to think of sin in terms of their consequences.

And sin does have consequences.

It's not just spiritual harm, but it's relational. It's financial, it's emotional. What I mean is, is you yelling at your spouse isn't just bad, because God doesn't want you to yell at your spouse, you yelling at your spouse, and you know, and belittling them is wrong because of what's that doing to them. And the consequence of that it affects their self esteem, and affects their self worth. God says, You are a child who I love that I was willing to die for. And then you may be possibly as a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever, are lying to them now. And you're telling them they're worthless, or whatever, they're a screw up, or how can they be so dumb?

That's an issue. That's a consequence of sin. It's not just wrong, because you're doing that it's wrong, because there's a spiral effect of consequences that harm people. And then this creates damage between people and God. So in this analogy of the spouse is just completely ripping in and verbally abusing another spouse. Eventually, it affects their self image, and then eventually it affects their relationship with God. Why did God put me in this situation? We blame God only for what other people do. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but we do that.

Why would God do that? Well, God can't possibly love me because God knows me better than anyone.

And this person only kind of knows Me thinks I'm garbage. So how can God possibly love me?

And so we got to think of sin like that. It's not just do's and don'ts. It's the consequences, the ripple effect, and that creates space between people and if people then turn around and they ultimately reject God because of things that we have said and done, you know, we believe that there are eternal implications to that.

And in this passage to clarify God as Judge, we're saying that the buck stops with him, God's not one of these gods and one of these guys who, at the end of life is just going to say, sorry, I tried, he still takes ownership and responsibility while respecting, I believe our free will. Certainly at the end of our lives, God could just say, just kidding, you're all gonna be with me, even if you hate me, you're gonna be with me, or you know, you're gonna reject me, you can be with me.

But I think that there would be some consequences, we'd have to think through on that one that you don't have free will anymore, because he's telling you that you can't really reject him, too. I have a big problem with God and the problem of evil here. Like what are we doing on this earth with all this pain and suffering? If in the end, God was just going to be like, Hey, we're all here party time.

I struggle with the injustice of that. And so in this passage is not to say that God is looking for a reason to send people to hell he's not we know that.

We've talked about that a lot.

You can go to our website, Madison church, comm slash Hal, and read our official theological essay on that we don't believe in this mean fiery, you know, toilet boy bowl of souls, just forever circulating type of hell. But we are to say that there is an eternal separation as far as we know and can read. And God takes responsibility for this as Yes, I am ultimately the judge, but he still respects our freewill even until death. Now, moving on to verse 32, the author tells us that one of the things that will help us with our faith and with our commitment to the community and to Christ is remembering the better things in life they write, think back on those earlier days. When you first learned about Christ, remember how you remained faithful, even though it meant terrible suffering. Sometimes you're exposed to public ridicule, and we were beaten. And sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things you suffered along with those who were thrown into jail. And when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy, you knew there were better things waiting for you, that will last forever. So the author of Hebrews is saying, okay, look, I know where we're at.

Now, he's kind of saying, we're at this third part of this journey with you. But remember, the first part of the journey you found out about Christ, and you were excited. And even though you were publicly mocked, I mean, just publicly mocked.

And even though you were put in jail, and in some cases, tortured, and in some extreme cases, put the death and even though your family members were to you have brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, parents, uncles, aunts, whoever, best friends, who were also put in jail, tortured, and possibly killed, even though all of that happened, even though get this their property was confiscated.

So you just being here, like, if you own a house, or you own a car, just imagine the government coming in and being like, you're a Christian, cool, give me the keys, okay? You don't wanna give me the keys that school will tell it. That's fine, like evicting you from your house, you're like, why paid for that, and this doesn't matter. We don't like your beliefs. These were the things that were happening. And we're told the author of Hebrews said, but you still had great joy. And isn't that kind of how dark moments begin after we find faith, or found faith and we're here for Jesus, and I'd rather have Jesus and then lose my soul. And we start going through the tough times, and, and we can do it for a while, we can do it for a season. And then eventually what happens, we like, well, this sucks, this sucks. And we're done. We're done all together.

And the author of Hebrews is trying to say, remember, remember, when you first found Jesus and the life that Jesus gave you, and remember how even when these awful things were happening, you still had joy?

Remember that. And I think that what that means for you and I today is that we have to have a practice, we have to have the discipline of remembering the good times. If you're like me, you're kind of cynical, you kind of try to look on the bad side.

But it's one of those things that like, Hey, you can't be disappointed if you expect disappointment is a terrible philosophy. I'm not teaching you to believe, though, I'm just telling you how I'm kind of naturally hardwired. And what the author of Hebrews is saying is, to me is a seven, you have to have a practice in your life to remember the good things, you have to have a practice in your life to look back and be reminded that it's not always as bad as you think it's going to be. And sometimes even when there are bad things going on, there were still some good things that were going on. It was never just all bad. And it's never just all good. And you know, like us today. I know that it can be hard to remain faithful, depending on your situation, circumstances. And but modern persecution does look a lot differently in Wisconsin this year, right? The government isn't coming kicking you out of your house. They're not coming to take your cars. But persecution looks like internet memes with passages of the Bible pulled out of context and then saying that you must believe in this awful thing, or this crazy thing or this stupid thing?

Because it's written in the Bible, no context, right? But just this one verse, you're a believer. And so persecution looks like the ridicule and the mocking publicly, and then we don't want to admit that we're a Christian because we don't want to get sucked up with maybe other people who are Christians.

You know, that's between, I guess dumbing God to a point but to say that there's this crazy group group of folks who I don't want to get lumped in with them.

I'm not like them, yes, I follow Jesus. But I don't know if it's the same Jesus that they follow.

Persecution could be a close relationship you're with, with someone that you love, maybe a parent, a child, a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, and they don't believe the same way as you. They don't believe the same way. So that creates conflict between you, they don't understand why you spend time doing this, no one understand why you spend money doing this.

They don't understand this was conflict. That's a form of persecution. And so the authors and whatever kind of form of persecution that you're facing today, we know that it's hard, it's dark, it's long, it's ongoing. But remember, the good times don't waver on your faith.

And when you are going through those things, remember your baptism. That's what they're gonna say, remember your baptism, how much fun that was?

How God seemed just tangible, you could just reach out and grab them. Remember that one time you're going through something and you pray and you pray? And you pray that God did answer it, I know that there were the prayers that you prayed that God didn't answer them, I get that. But the author of you would say, make a choice to remember the ones that God did answer. When you're going through our time. If you're going through a hard time, don't raise your hand, if you're going through a hard time. Perhaps what you need to do after you leave today is to just sit in your car, go home and sit and write down a few things that were good in your faith.

And then watch how if you do that, what happens? Because it's a spiritual activity, that the author view is not just writing down three things for the sake of writing down three things, but watch how God meets you there. And then go into verse 35. From a warning, which we've had a very strong warning to begin this passage, right? Let's go back to encouragement. This is the author of Hebrews writing, do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord.

Remember, the great reward, it brings you patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God's will, then you will receive all that He has promised for in just a little while the coming one will come and not delay. And my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away. But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones whose souls will be saved. So again, the author of Hebrews has done this kind of gone from to extremes, where he's like talking about how and judgments and and then he flips over real fast before we end today, and wants to leave on this encouraging note, don't throw away the confident trust.

That's why I'm telling you this, this is why I'm warning you about sin and, and judgment and eternal separation so that you don't go through it. That's why I want you to have this eternal reward to be with Jesus to be with your family, to be happy to live in a place where there's no sickness or death anymore to live in a place where you don't have bad days anymore to have a completely clear conscious, the author of Hebrews is pleading with us out of a love for you and I. They could have just gone on their way not written. We don't again, we don't know who it is. They could have just said, yeah, there's this house church, Jewish Christians. Look, I'm good. I know what I believe I'm, I'm fine. I don't care. But they're practicing what they preach. They're not giving up on their community. They're not giving up on their people, their friends or family that they know. And they're stepping up.

And occasionally, there's some challenging things in there. But in this case, it's supportive.

The coming one will come and will not delay, and we will not turn away we are faithful ones, our souls will be saved. There's this constant reassurance of God's desire God's will that every single person will be with them. Every single person is God's desire. Now, will that happen? Will it not happen? Does God get what God wants? I think that's another theological conversation for another day.

But growing in our faith, the application for today, what do we take from all of this talks that we just read, one growing in your faith isn't just going to happen. As not like just showing up here once a week is going to be all you need. It's definitely certainly part of it.

But also going to like your midweek group is going to be part of that to reading your Bible praying, that's going to be part of it. Baptism is going to be part of it. Practicing generosity with your finances, and with your time is going to be part of it. It's the product, our growing faith will be the product of ongoing choices that we make little choices that we make every single day, seeking out God's will for our lives.

But I do have three practices.

Last week, I had three questions as the application this week, I have three practices that I would I would ask you to consider. One is prayer journaling. And that's just the jot down a sentence or two every day. The goal is not how much you can write. It's not about writing pages and pages and pages, actually, this strategy and prayer journaling is to kind of keep it short and sweet because we're trying to go for every day, for years. So I have a prayer journal that's going on its fifth year now. And so what I do is it's got five kind of columns on each side. And I can now look back and see what I was praying for five years ago. And that's kind of one of the ways that I mentioned that I tend to be more cynical and look on the negative side of things. But one of the things that I can see is looking back I'm like, Oh, I forgot about that. I was I was really concerned when I was praying like I can almost see it in my handwriting, I'm like, I'm freaking out about something it was, it was all of our being sick, it was a financial situation at home or at church.

And I remember being like super scared, super concerned. And then I can remember, and then it's like flipping over to the year later. It's like a prayer that's like, God, thank you for answering that. Like, even though it's such a bad situation God did come through. And so prayer journaling, it doesn't need to be fancy, all of your phones have a notebook out, you can use that that'll work just fine. Um, you can buy $1 notebook somewhere, or, like I said, they do sell five year journals. And that's what I use.

A second thing that you can do is continue to participate in Christian community. And Madison church, what we do here isn't just an hour long service on Sundays. That's part of it. But that really is just one part of a lot of things that we do to create community. The church is meant to be community, it's meant to be a church community, a body of believers. And when you're supposed to get to know each other, we're supposed to know other people, and we're supposed to be known by them.

And that's going to take transparency, it's going to take time, it's going to take the choosing to be vulnerable with one another, it's going to mean that there's going to be conflict, and we're going to choose to resolve that conflict.

You know, hopefully maturely.

And biblically, I've seen conflict resolved in other ways that weren't those things. But you know, we're going to try to do it like that. And so we're going to participate and how you can participate is one by showing up just by being here tonight. Congratulations, you did step two, you didn't even know it. But another way is to get involved in one of those midweek groups talked about Emotionally Healthy Spirituality join that there's no cost, it costs you an hour and a half, once a week to drive to Lindsay's house and with Brianna in the study and to get to know each other. And this isn't going to be an hour and a half of telling your deepest, darkest secrets, right? It's not going to be that. But it is going to be a time of war we're growing, we can be vulnerable with each other and get to know. Another thing is you can get involved on a team. Right now. It's so exciting. We have our middle school ministry launched again today for the first time since the spring. So we have middle schoolers upstairs. And we have somebody who just recently started coming to our church leading that right now. And so that's exciting. Get on a team, there's middle school, kids, there's the band, all sorts of opportunities to get connected with other people. And then finally, a little bit of advice.

This is what I started telling myself don't miss twice. I started telling myself this years ago, I don't know where it came from. I'm positive I stole it from someone. So if you've know where it's from, you can tell me, but don't miss twice.

It's really helpful. If I'm going to skip prayer journaling today, when we're going to make that decision. I know that I can't miss it tomorrow.

I'll say to Stephen, don't miss twice. And so sometimes that motivates me to do it today, just in case tomorrow, I feel like doing it less than I do today. If I know for example, I'm going to miss my small group next week. I'm like, come hell or high water. I gotta go this week blizzard outside, whatever it is, I know I'm gonna miss next week. So I'm gonna have to risk my life this week, because I've got this philosophy that says you don't miss twice. And do I miss twice? Yeah, sometimes I do. But it's the pressure that I put on myself in this thing that I tell him I don't miss twice. And so I think that if we begin to think that don't miss twice, that really will help your faith in those journal. Not journaling. But if you're praying and you're like, Oh, I didn't pray on Monday. Okay, we'll do it today. Great, don't miss twice. Well, I'm not gonna be able to read my Bible today.

Okay, make sure you, you just know that tomorrow, that needs to be the first thing you do when you wake up, because who knows how the rest of the day is gonna fold out. And so don't, don't miss twice make a plan around that. And what we talked about today is a church community small, just like ours and their weaknesses. And their weakness, the weakness of this church was to opt out to a lifestyle that was based on withdrawal and concealment. They chose to not be vulnerable, they chose to not be transparent, they chose to stop showing up.

And that was their weakness. Now you and I were all gonna feel weak from time to time you might feel weak right now in this morning. But the danger, the danger is not that we feel weak, but the danger is what we do based on how we feel. Are we going to withdraw? Or are we going to lean in? Have you ever thought that your weakness, the season of life that you're going through no matter how stale no matter how bad, you still have a choice? My choice is that I can grow closer to God because of this. Or I can move far from God because of it. That's a choice that you get to make what what's happened has happened and God is still God. But no matter what you're going through, you have a choice. Am I going to let this bring me closer to God or push me further from him when it comes like living? like never before? We have to be aware that we're going to have hard periods of time. Hopefully they only last month when they happen, or weeks or days. Hopefully they don't last years. But if we're prepared for them, those hard times will bring us closer to God and to each other but we're unprepared. those hard times have the potential to separate us not just from each other, but from God. Let's pray